sigh.

The question: when did I start feeling like I'm just drifting here in Brasil?

Was it the first morning, when I woke up at 5:30 and couldn't get back to sleep (as I've done every morning since)? Was it last weekend when I experienced so much joie de vivre at various dance venues, and just couldn't feel it myself? Was it in Portuguese class, staring out the window while the professor reviewed the difference between reflexive and direct verbs for the tenth time? Was it at the beach this weekend - amidst so much natural beauty, yet so far from friends and family who would have appreciated such a sight so much? Reading the only English text I have (The Lonely Planet guide to Brazil), causing me only to feel more disconnected from everything?

Or was it before I even got to Brasil, back in the hotel in Paraguay?

One thing I do know - the moment I heard 'YMCA' on the radio on the bus back from the beach this weekend, that was it. I can't stand that song. It is terrible. I thought, "I'm ready to go home, I'm ready to 'move' somewhere."

I know this feeling, I've been here before. So, after a beautiful weekend of sun, fresh food, all-ages Capoeira circles, and one lonely Caipirinha, I decided to go home. I cut my trip a week short, and will be flying back to Arkansas (to see mom) on September 25.

Pronto.